(AP) BEIJING (AP)  A Chinese general's call for land attacks on Somali pirate strongholds is being seen by analysts as another sign of the armed forces' growing assertiveness, even if the proposal is unlikely to result in action.

Speaking at a news conference Wednesday in Washington, Gen. Chen Bingde said he believes land bases must be assaulted in order to eradicate piracy.

"I think that for our counter-piracy campaigns to be effective, we should probably move beyond the ocean and crush their bases on the land," Chen said, adding that those funding and organizing piracy must be targeted along with rank-and-file brigands.

Chen's call was interpreted among analysts more as a statement of desire than intent, with the People's Liberation Army ill-equipped to carry out such missions and little appetite among other nations for dispatching troops to the African mainland.

His remarks, however, fit a pattern of greater outspokenness among PLA leaders that sometimes diverges from the official government line, especially in areas outside China's core interests of Taiwan, Tibet and its South China Sea territorial claims.

This is all drifting towards sending in foreign troops to, in effect, re-impose colonial type rule and attempt to train and install a government that will last. This is a very unsavory option, and not guaranteed to work. No one (at least in Africa or the West) wants to go near the C (for colonial word). But Chinese military leaders are pointing out that there is no other option, especially if the pirates are to be shut down. The Chinese are willing to contribute to the invasion force, but not to do it by themselves. Some Western military leaders have also pointed out the need for occupation of the coastal towns used as pirate bases. No one, not even the Chinese, want to go much beyond these coastal towns. Note that the Chinese have no hang-ups about the C word, and have long used a more "practical" approach to working with African governments.

On a visit to the U.S. this week, China's top military commander Chen Bingde suggested that the international coalition patrolling the Gulf of Aden and the waters off the coast of Somalia ought to take decisive action against pirate dens on land. So far, the counter-piracy strategy has focused on the pirate "mother-ships," usually retrofitted trawlers that tow little skiffs out into the deep sea. Yet the pirate problem emanating from lawless Somalia cost the global economy over $8.3 billion in 2010. And China has a huge stake in securing its ever-increasing economic interests in the region.

Implement a No Boat zone along the Somalian coast for the next 40 years.

And here's where the circle gets completed: Commerical boats from Asia wiped out the local fish populations, putting the Somali fishermen out of business. They turned to piracy to keep from starving. Now the Chinese want to kill them.

What an opportunity for John F. Kerry to put on his CIA cap, man the PT Boats and take the fight to these Pirates of Arabia. I’m sure there’s a drunken Kennedy or 2 that need to launch their political careers.

"Wars of conquest in places no one really cares about would seem to be one answer."

One problem, China has no way of getting all of those armed men to Somalia. This is an empty threat and quite frankly a joke. However, if China is serious I say go for it. We as good Americans should offer to provide officers as observers to monitor the operation. Take notes on Chineese forces in action...

The ChiCom apparently still have some cahonies that the West has lost somewhere along the way. Africa appears to be a resource rich power vacuum available for the picking. Does history repeat itself? Youbetitdoes.

A United Nations report in 2006 said that, in the absence of the country's at one time serviceable coastguard, Somali waters have become the site of an international "free for all," with fishing fleets from around the world illegally plundering Somali stocks and freezing out the country's own rudimentarily-equipped fishermen. According to another U.N. report, an estimated $300 million worth of seafood is stolen from the country's coastline each year. "In any context," says Gustavo Carvalho, a London-based researcher with Global Witness, an environmental NGO, "that is a staggering sum."

* I think that for our counter-piracy campaigns to be effective, we should probably move beyond the ocean and crush their bases on the land,” Chen said, adding that those funding and organizing piracy must be targeted along with rank-and-file brigands. *

This is probably the first time I agree with a political decision made by China.

37
posted on 05/26/2011 7:15:44 AM PDT
by PATRIOT1876
(The only crimes that are 100% preventable are crimes committed by illegal aliens)

Pay the next ransom in cash laced with a deadly biological agent that has a 5-7 day incubation period. That will sicken not only the pirates who share in the loot, but their families and those who sell to them. Whole pirate villages will cease to exist in a matter of weeks.

Repeat as necessary.

38
posted on 05/26/2011 7:30:50 AM PDT
by JimRed
(Excising a cancer before it kills us waters the Tree of Liberty! TERM LIMITS, NOW AND FOREVER!)

This also points to Somalia’s basic problem. It has not had an organized and recognized government since the ouster of President Barre in 1991. At that time and before it was a under the Soviet Sphere of influence. With the end of the Soviets and the Cold war, there was no one to prop them up and so they have fallen into this lawless land. The Pirates are only a symptom of all of these warring tribal factions trying to gain control of the country and none of them able to fend off any outside interference from other countries such as this fishing problem.

Methinks you guys over estimate the reach and power of the Chinese military and underestimate what would happen if an occupying force came into Somalia. All of the tribes would band together for common cause and work to oust the invader IMO. It would be a long and bloody affair with most of the world lining up to denounce China. Now, if they just went in, wiped out the pirates and left, that would be achievable. However, the pirate problem would only be gone for maybe a couple of years. It would then come back. Power abhors a vacuum and some leader of some tribe would step in to be the next Captain Kidd. Piracy is merey a symptom of the problem in Somalia. The problem is there is no organized and recognized government. The current one is useless and powerless...

As an aside, one of the things stopping reprisals against the pirate bases are the fact that the Somali pirates hold quite a number of hostages. Of course, it is quite likely the Chinese don’t care about the hostages . . .

1. Destroy pirate funding - no ransom for ships or crews. corporations or organizations that pay ransoms are to be sanctioned into bankruptcy.

2. The Navies of the Civilized World should attack pirates at sea. Captured pirates should be tried and executed by military courts at sea. They should not set foot on land again.

3. The Navies of Civilized World should attack the coastal towns than harbor the pirates. Captured ships should recovered, or, failing that, sunk. Everything else that floats should be sunk. The water fronts should be burned with special emphasis on destroying any boat or shipyards.

4. At the same time, troops should rescue any hostages or captured crews or recover their bodies.

5. The principle of massive, indiscriminate retaliation for the death of hostages and crews should be established. Literally hundreds of Somalis within the pirate towns should die for each hostage or crewman killed by them.

6. War should be made against businesses that provide logistics support to the pirates - boats, weapons, fuel, etc. Organizations supplying such should be destroyed and their owners slaughtered.

7. The leaders of the pirates should be hunted wherever the reside and killed without mercy.

8. Individuals providing information to pirates regarding ships to be targeted should be hunted and killed without mercy.

9. The laws of the sea and of nations should be changed to allow ships to carry weapons for self defense. Bounties should be paid for successful defense if involves the death of pirates or the destruction of their vessels.

43
posted on 05/26/2011 8:47:59 AM PDT
by Little Ray
(The Gods of the Copybook Heading, with terror and slaughter return!)

The Pirates are only a symptom of all of these warring tribal factions trying to gain control of the country

Since a lot of people don't know, Somalia is divided into three parts. Puntland and Somaliland are autonomous northern states, somewhat recognized as independent, but not given nation status. The Transitional Federal Government (TFG) is on the offense right now backed heavily by foreign troops and U.N. money. They control approximately 1/2 of the capitol Mogadishu. That's actually a significant gain for them. They were down to 12 blocks at one time with 8,000 foreign mercenaries holding it.

A significant number of the pirates sail from Puntland. Al Shabbab, the Al Qaeda group that controls most of the southern third of the country, wants in on the action has been fighting with the pirates lately. Al Shabbab has also been getting into fights with Kenya and Ethiopia, who have both made incursions into Somalia recently to push back Al Shabbab.

Beyond illegal fishing, foreign ships have also long been accused by local fishermen of dumping toxic and nuclear waste off Somalia's shores. A 2005 United Nations Environmental Program report cited uranium radioactive and other hazardous deposits leading to a rash of respiratory ailments and skin diseases breaking out in villages along the Somali coast. According to the U.N., at the time of the report, it cost $2.50 per ton for a European company to dump these types of materials off the Horn of Africa, as opposed to $250 per ton to dispose of them cleanly in Europe.

Somali pirates is costing the Chinese hugely, two cutting edge boats full time, boats which could’ve been diverted to more productive purposes, i.e., the patrolling and keeping [of State sponsored pirates] in the South China Sea from getting too smart assed which is much more sensible a proposition.

If that dumping of toxins has been done, the offenders should be caught and punished for the violation. That was done without regard for the results. My suggestion is a self-defense strategy for the seafaring world.

Aren’t rashes and disease common in third world crapholes like Somalia, anyway? < /cruel truth >

48
posted on 05/26/2011 10:19:50 AM PDT
by JimRed
(Excising a cancer before it kills us waters the Tree of Liberty! TERM LIMITS, NOW AND FOREVER!)

The Chinese have some huge number - at least 10 million? - excess males in the 18-35 warfighting demographic. What to do with them all?

Wars of conquest in places no one really cares about would seem to be one answer.

Is there any evidence to back up this theory? I know a number of people have said it, but it seems to be one of those shibboleths that circulates as if it's holy writ. In fact, China has had surplus males for most of its history, because monogamy is a Western import of recent (20th century) vintage. And yet, relative to European countries, China has had a pretty peaceful history, with few border changes over the last 2000 years. John Derbyshire at the National Review comments:

There is some speculation about what the social and political effects of the male surplus will be. Some writers have argued that it will have national-security implications for the U.S.A. I say fiddlesticks. Its been the case in societies all over, all through history, that there were not enough brides for the available men. This was certainly so in China because of polygamy. A dear old friend of mine, recently deceased, was born in Guangdong Province in the late 1920s to a father with seven wives. (And this, note, in a nation where female infanticide was still in play, as it had been among the poorer class of peasants since time immemorial.)

Even in monogamous cultures there have been adult sex-ratio imbalances due to such factors as male deaths in war and vendetta, and the shunting off of high-status females to convents. If theres any good data showing that popualtions with surplus males are more prone to warfare or despotism than those without, Id like to see it. As Mara Hvistendahl notes in her forthcoming book on the subject, Adolf Hitler came to power at a time when Germany had over 2 million more women than men as a result of the toll taken by World War I.

50
posted on 05/26/2011 12:44:47 PM PDT
by Zhang Fei
(Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always.)

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